The Hub Systems Episode 19 - Salute 2016

After the Salute 2016 show, Oscar and I invite Spartan Vanguard Ian Duff (who was running the Planetfall demos), Chris Smith (aka the organiser of the Reading Warfare Firestorm tournament) and Tomas Martin (lead author for Spiral Arm Studios and Maelstrom's Edge) to talk about our impressions and highlights.

We cover new games like Halo Ground Combat and Project Götterdämmerung, as well as our usual Hit or Miss slot, where this time we examine the "Limited Edition" 2016 Space Marine from Games Workshop.

Tomas takes some time to talk about Maelstrom's Edge and how things have changed for Spiral Arms from last year pre-Kickstarter, to this year and having delivered and going retail. here's their website if you want to know more, or to buy the game, of course!

https://www.maelstromsedge.com/medge/

We also look at the rather nice Space Stations coming in Dropfleet Commander (look these up on Facebook);

Plus lots of other stuff - Enjoy!

Salute 2016

Returned from Salute 2016, which was exhausting but rewarding - Oscar and I did demo and participation games of Firestorm for 6 hours straight, and saw a lot of people...all of whom were very pleasant and had great things to say, so if you're one of them - thanks for stopping by!

Anyway, pictures speak a thousand words, so let's start off with the Spartan Games area during set up.

Spartan had double the area they had in 2015 at Salute this year, which was great

Not one but TWO Firestorm tables, one with the new reinforcement box ships, the other with the new Xelocians (we'll come back to them, don't worry!)

The Halo Fleet Battles table was showing off the new resin models, as well as the huge Covenant ship first shown at Gencon last year.

Dystopian Wars was not forgotten, demoed by Neil Parry and Andy.

The Planetfall table was actually put together not by Spartan, but by Ian Duff, who did an amazing job - the scenery was just gorgeous - I wish I'd not been too tired at the end of the day to remember to take a picture of the rooftop garden Ian had made - it was simply beautiful!

Of course Spartan were showcasing their Summer release of Halo Ground Combat, with some great 15mm renditions of the iconic Halo designs;

Warthogs stand off against the Covenant

Though I'm not sure this tank is really doing a good job of hiding behind terrain!

The infantry will be immediately recognisable by anyone who's played the Halo games.

Master Chief hiding? Or trying to operate that big gun?

Rooftop sniper and spotter teams

There were also a couple of pre-order show giveaways - 54mm versions of either a Spartan or an Elite with preorders of HGC.

This one will be a bit of a surprise to many (if not all) - Spartan were showing another new game in the pipes...Project Gotterdamurang, a WWII 1946 1/300th tank action game.

Anyway, back to Firestorm....I promised you Xelocians, didn't I?

Dreadnought (probably my favourite ship int he release) with its gun escorts - these can also be taken as Corvettes, making them super-useful.

Battleship - I love the tri-hull design here

The Cruisers, taken from the rear flank, which shows their simple, clean lines. This could be a very dull ship, but it's not, it looks sleek and elegant, but also deadly. Deeply impressive.

Finally the Frigates, which are not a squadron to be ignored (trust me!)

Here's Oscar poring over hardpoints for the Xelocians...decisions, decisions...

Here he is towards the end of the day, helping the next generation of players (we hope), even without having had a break for 6 hours. Made me immensely proud as a father to see him interacting with adults, teens and children throughout the day in a pleasant, confident and helpful manner. Not a single grumble, and a smile to the end - tremendous!

Just over a couple of tables and Ian's conducting several Planetfall converts in the art of killing lizards with spiders - well done that man!

loads of interest throughout the day kept everyone busy at the Spartan stand, Staff and volunteers alike often outnumbered 4:1 or more!

Martin, Spartan's production manager, on the Halo Fleet Battles table..wait, who's that dodgy bloke behind him? You know who I mean Chris!!!

Oscar and I got little time to have a run around the rest of the hall, but did swing by Hawk to see the progress on Dropfleet Commander, where's Dave has been busy making more larger-scale spaceships it seems - this did look rather nice, even if I'm not that sold on the big turret cannon things

So in a whirlwind Salute came and went, but it was thoroughly enjoyable and great to see people so interested in throwing dice and moving plastic spaceships around. Exhausting, but very rewarding - go next year if you can, otherwise see you at Reading Warfare in November!

Planetfall Magnetised Storage

Now I've mentioned the games room is coming along, so I've been sorting out my various gaming model collections - Firestorm ships, Zombicide, Strange Aeons and Deadzone figures in GW cases, larger models in display cases...but that leaves a lot of Planetfall stuff...question is, where to put it?

Now some time ago I acquired a postal letter rack thing - I don't know the official name for it - the kind of thing you'd get in an office for distributing letters to staff. I picked it up off our local Freecycle - a community where unwanted items are advertised to others to use if they have a use for them.

By itself this letter rack is not that useful - deep, shallow shelves are not that easy for using with many things other than letters! I had a plan however...First, I bought some sheet steel - 0.8mm thick and 625mm square...the company allowed up to 10 cuts for free on this, so cutting in half in one direction and in thirds in the other produces 6 sheets of about A4 dimension - the same as a standard piece of paper (in Europe). In other words, a piece of steel that will fit the letter rack.

I also ordered some flexible magnetic sheets - these were A5 size and 0.8 mm thick, the sort used for making fridge magnets.

The steel sheet also works well as a straight edge to cut the magnetic sheets on my cutting mat, so the first stage is to get everything lined up to cut a 4cm wide strip...

...and the cut it using a scalpel or similar blade.

This is repeated...

...until we've a stack of strips.

After that, this 3cm rectangles are cut off this strips, either as before with the scalpel

Or even using scissors and an infantry base as a guide

In any case, you then have some appropriately sized rectangles of magnetic sheet, and your small Planetfall bases. make sure you get the right side up, as typically only one side is magnetic, and you want to make sure that's NOT the side you're gluing to the base!

It's then a simple matter of adding superglue

And attaching firmly

Voila!

i found that a couple of drops of superglue was sufficient, and the base can then be used to quickly spread it around, either with a circular or dragging motion, to ensure there's glue over most of the base/magnet union without getting too much seepage of glue (you can see a little in the bottom right hand corner of the base above).

This can then be put on the magnetic sheet until its fully dried

Even so, it will cling to the steel sheet...

...even upside down!

When it's completely dry, you can then trim off any excess sheet from the base. I just used scissors for this - it's quick and easy.

Repeat until finished...

And here they are stored in the letter-rack - or at least the start of the forces

I've ordered some more sheet as I got through the small A5 sheets quite quickly - and as you can see I've a lot of Planetfall stuff to do.